The results, led by a strong growth in both licensing and services revenue, continue to lay the foundation for VMware's three growth priorities in software-defined data centers, hybrid clouds and end-user computing, said VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger during the company's financial analyst call.

VMware President and COO Carl Eschenbach said during the call that he is pleased to see how closely the company's channel partners work with VMware.

Neither VMware executives nor analysts on the conference call discussed the possibility that parent company EMC might spin off VMware or purchase it outright. EMC owns 80 percent of VMware, and one of EMC's biggest investors is calling for the two to separate.

VMware reported second-quarter revenue of $1.46 billion, up 17 percent from a year earlier. Wall Street analysts had been expecting revenue to reach $1.35 billion.

VMware also reported GAAP earnings of $167 million, or 38 cents per share, down from $245 million, or 57 cents per share. The company attributed the drop to its February acquisition of mobile device management developer AirWatch.

On a non-GAAP basis, VMware reported earnings of $351 million, or 81 cents per share, up slightly from last year's earnings of $343 million, or 79 cents per share. That compares to Wall Street analyst expectations of non-GAAP earnings of 79 cents per share.

About 47 percent of VMware's revenue, or $683 million, came from the U.S. market in the second quarter of 2014, up from $590 million, or 47.5 percent of the total, in the year-ago period.

Enterprise license agreements, or ELAs, played a big role in VMware's business during the second quarter, Eschenbach said. About 37 percent of total second-quarter bookings came from enterprise license agreements, which was the second-highest level for the company, he said.